Former Leamington restaurant boss stripped of licence after conviction for sexual assault

Staff report

A Leamington restaurant boss who sexually assaulted young women when they applied for jobs as waitresses, has been stripped of his licence.

Prashant Sengar, the boss of now-closed Spicy Affair in Victoria Terrace, Leamington, was jailed for 22 months last month after he was found guilty of seven charges of sexual assault.

But his case was brought back before the judge at Warwick Crown Court under what is known as the ‘slip rule,’ which enables sentences to be amended.

And Judge Andrew Lockhart QC ordered that Sengar, 40, of Cornyx Lane, Solihull, should also have his personal licence, which enables him to run licensed premises, revoked.

The judge had already ordered him to register as a sex offender for ten years and imposed a sexual harm prevention order banning him from interviewing female job applicants without a chaperone.

Prosecutor Lee Marklew had told the jury: “Prashant Sengar is a man with wandering hands.

He’s an arrogant man, the owner of an Indian restaurant, Spicy Affair, in Leamington. He abused his position of authority with these ladies.”

His first victim started work at Spicy Affair in 2012, and he soon began slapping her bottom as he went past her.

Then one evening as she got her coat at the end of shift, he grabbed her from behind, turning her round and trying to kiss her; and when she pulled away, he persisted, saying he would not go ‘anywhere between your legs.’

Fortunately new customers came in, and he left to attend to them; but two days later, while they were making a delivery, he reached across and forcibly tried to kiss her.

When she resisted he said she could not want the job that much if that was her attitude and, faced with his bullying, sexually invasive manner, she quit and reported it to the police.

But when he was arrested Sengar claimed she was lying, and with one word against another, it was decided not to charge him – but far from that being a warning, having got away with it once, the arrogant restaurant boss continued with his behaviour.

In the spring of 2013 two friends who were looking for work went for interviews with Sengar after seeing a job advert, and he talked to them in an unsettling and inappropriate manner.

While a staff member then showed one of the girls around he took hold of the other girl’s knee and asked if she would be interested in modelling for him.

Mr Marklew commented: “It was deliberate, and it was an assault. Not the most serious, but it is an assault nevertheless, and is part of a pattern of behaviour.”

When she froze, Sengar told her to go upstairs and to ask her friend to come down - and he then tried it on with her, putting his hand on her thigh and leaning in to try to kiss her.

The girls reported him, and Sengar was arrested again, but claimed there was nothing sexual in touching the first girl’s knee and denied anything at all had happened with her friend.

But although an officer made the connection with Sengar’s first victim, the CPS still decided to take no action.

Interviewing another young woman later in the year, he draped his arm over her shoulder and stroked her back as he showed her the till, and began patting her bottom after she started work.

The day before she walked out over that, Sengar rubbed the thigh and bottom of yet another woman as he interviewed her.

And when she went to the police Dc Tim O’Mahoney, who had been ‘watching’ Sengar, found documents at the restaurant through which he was able to trace other victims.

Jailing Sengar, Judge Lockhart had told him: “You have been involved in a series of offences committed against young women who sought employment at your restaurant or in entertainment. I am sure this was planned activity.”